


last request

by cosmicpoet



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Angst, Chapter five, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-02 11:01:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13316724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicpoet/pseuds/cosmicpoet
Summary: Kaito's last request is to be able to hold Maki one last time. They sit on the trial ground, and he wishes that he could stop her heartbreak from shattering the world.





	last request

**Author's Note:**

> Listen to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lknwpNCSK_0) as you read for extra sadness.

The trial room is a cold, distant place; the podiums feel like gallows, wherein any one of them could drop down at any moment. Kaito knows that he’s standing on his tiptoes with a noose around his neck - a metaphorical one, although it may as well be literal; his throat feels as if it’s closing up. Just one more moment and he can get out of the Exisal. Of course, he’ll be revealing himself, approaching his imminent death, but he needs fresh air or he’ll die before his time is truly up - and, selfishly, he wants to look at Maki one last time, not from inside an Exisal, but to take in every detail of her in intricate depth. He’s desperate to burn the image of her into his mind, so that dying will not be so bad.

He feels awash with guilt when he steps out of the Exisal. Shuichi looks burdened with remorse; Maki looks completely floored - he can’t read her, not this time. Everyone else is equally confused, the harsh muteness of betrayal in their eyes makes him look up to the ceiling and wish that it would push down on him, _like the press pushed down on Kokichi._ He breathes, slowly, rationally; he knew back then what he was getting into, when he switched places and watched the hydraulic press crack bone and muscle and teeth into a mess that he falsely named after himself.

But now isn’t the time to humanise Kokichi any more than he already has. For the whole trial, he’s been biting his lip within the Exisal, crushing the knowledge that, although his methods were cruel, Kokichi’s goal was not so far from his own. Now, he must explain to the others, a beautiful group of hopeful people, all of whom he feels he has failed, exactly what happened in the Exisal hangar.

He speaks methodically, distancing himself from the conversation, becoming, momentarily, a vessel of facts and recollections - it’s easier to get out his words if he doesn’t feel that there’s any emotion behind them. A voice in his head says _‘that’s a lie’,_ and he clenches his teeth and his fists alike. 

Once he’s finished, Maki still isn’t satisfied. _Of course_ she isn’t satisfied; he knows that she and Shuichi rely on him, still. Ideally, he could have a little more time with them, enough for them to improve themselves through him; he would be more at peace with dying, were he not leaving behind those two. But Shuichi dealt with losing Kaede, and Kaito knows that he will be able to move past this, too, for the sake of everyone left alive; Maki is the one he’s really worrying about.

As if prompted by his thoughts of her, Maki steps in front of him and pulls a knife on Monokuma.

“Maki Roll,” he says, trying desperately not to cry - he needs to seem strong, he needs to _be_ strong, “don’t.”

“Kaito, I…I can’t let you die.”

“I don’t,” he pauses, looks down at the floor, then back up at her; he believes that he’s never seen such a beautiful sight, “Maki Roll…I don’t have much time left.”

“I don’t care! I’m not letting the mastermind touch you.”

“P-Please…for once…just listen to me.”

“Kaito,” she starts crying, “I can’t lose you. I just can’t - it’s not fair! Please…I’m begging you. Don’t go.”

“Can I ask one last thing of you?”

“Anything,” she says, “anything at all.”

“Can I…may I…oh, fuck,” he says, “I just want to hold you one last time.”

This statement, one of such heartbreaking magnitude - a budding request, and the knowledge that it will never be truly fulfilled to its greatest potential - brings Maki to tears. Kaito, a little regretful that she’s crying over him, puts his arm around her. Even Monokuma doesn’t bother them, as they sit together on the floor of the trial ground.

Maki is shaking, her whole body overcome with the weight of depression tethering her to a reality that she no longer wants to be a part of. Kaito pushes aside his own terror and tries to calm her; he’s full of false promises and fake smiles, and it just _isn’t enough,_ because nothing can fix the fragments of broken glass into the way they were before. He still has his arm around her, and they’re so close that they’re touching sides - Kaito wishes that it were physically possible to hold her even closer; shelter her from the killing game, from the world that has treated her so cruelly. Part of him - the part that scares him, the part that views reckless self-sacrifice as the only way he can culminate his own life - is glad that he’s dying in her place. Had he not killed Kokichi, Maki would have been the blackened. He thinks that the most selfish thing he could do is to let himself die, and leave her with the pain of losing her lover. Closing his eyes, he allows himself one moment of self-hate.

Her sobs have not subsided; she brings her knees to her chest and makes herself so small, Kaito wonders if she’s trying to crush herself out of existence. By now, she’s resting her head on his chest, and he’s sitting, stroking the hair that flows down her back and feeling like a terrible person for doing this to her.

“Shh,” he whispers to her, not caring if Monokuma is broadcasting this to an audience, “it’s alright. I’m still here.”

“B-But,” Maki chokes on her own sobs, “y-you’re going to…d-die in a m-moment. I n-need you to s-stay with me.”

“It’s okay, darling, it’s okay,” he says. No amount of his usual optimism will ever be able to change the fact that this situation is destroying them both from the inside out. He briefly envies Kokichi - Kaito himself would rather be under a hydraulic press at this moment; anything to stop Maki from tearing out his heart with her helpless pleas for him to stay. But then he remembers that Kokichi died unloved; at least within the Ultimate Academy, everyone believed that he was against them, right to the end. As selfish as he feels, Kaito would rather die surrounded by his friends.

“It’ll…never b-be okay again,” Maki says, still burying her face into Kaito’s chest. All he can do is continue to rub circles on her back with his palm, and pull her closer into him.

“I’m here,” he says, “and I’m staying for as long as I can. I love you.”

“Kaito,” she looks up at him; her face is streaked with tear-tracks and his heart shatters, “I-I love you.”

She wraps her arms around him. He rests his head on the top of hers, trying to bite back tears, trying to remain strong for her. Gently, he puts his hand under her chin and lifts up her head so that she’s looking at him. In a moment of beautiful simplicity, he kisses her on the cheek. He knows that he hasn’t got long left.

When he turns away and coughs up blood, he knows that it’s the end. Truthfully, he feels lucky to have been allowed five minutes of intimacy with Maki before he dies - it’s a privilege that he didn’t think his illness, or Monokuma, would have allowed him. He supposes that a love story would be appealing to an audience - should Kokichi’s theory be correct - and he hates that their mutual heartbreak could be nothing more than a plot twist for whichever sick, twisted person is enjoying this.

Monokuma begins to give his usual speech about beginning the punishment. Kaito isn’t scared - he has been scared, but now, he’s too focused on Maki to care about his own death. Even at the end, he still sees himself only as a way for other people to improve themselves through. With the last of his strength, he tries to stand, but Maki pulls him into a kiss. She’s desperate, crying, and he’s dying; they make quite the tragic pair, but he doesn’t mind the blood in his mouth when he’s spending his last moments in a delicate, beautiful embrace with the girl he loves.

“Darling,” he says, “I love you. You have to survive.”

Weakly, she nods.

He stands up, and only a moment after, immediately collapses. He has no strength or will to fight back when Monokuma straps him into a rocket. With his last coherent thought, he feels thankful that the rocket has a small window; he watches Maki grow smaller and smaller as he travels further from the ground. There’s still blood in his mouth, and soon, his lungs are burning - but he doesn’t care.

He doesn’t care that his body is too weak to breathe.

He doesn’t care that his throat feels ripped apart.

He pictures Maki in his mind, and forces himself to muster up the strength to raise his arm. Touching his own face, his own lips, he pictures her face in his mind, pictures her kissing him, as his body finally gives in.

_The astronaut never makes it home, but he dies smiling._

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Dodo told me not to write sad kaimaki so I wrote sad kaimaki! Comments mean a lot to me, so let me know if you liked it!


End file.
